Raybearer: Chapters 26–34

On the road, conventional propriety had mattered little as we escaped death by Bush-spirits, and followed tutsu sprites to find a mystical ehru.

“The ‘suppression of dissent.’” He contained a grimace. “We’ll be practicing riot control.”

The Peace Age: A Treatise on the Preservation of the Oluwan Economy Under the Reign of Aiyetoro.

Other sources painted her as conniving, a vain and irrational shrew, caring only for her own survival.

No historian, no matter how begrudging, could deny that in less than twenty years, the quiet, obscure Kunleo girl had abolished the Arit slave trade, crushed the ensuing rebellion, and brought an era of peace that had lasted for centuries.

I tapped again, using my Hallow this time, and several dozen spiders scuttled across my consciousness.

Facetiously, I began to beat out the military sequence for retreat, which could also mean the effort is going nowhere.

The last half, godo-godo-gun, sounded like the all clear, come now phrase miners used in quarries.

During festivals, griots performed in the Theatre Garden, declaiming praise poems about the emperor and his council.

Crowds of dignitaries, nobility, and commoners would attend, and so the palace bustled in preparation.

Many royals, I learned with chagrin, would attend as well.

This was unusual: The continent’s rulers typically sent a proxy to everything but the grandest imperial events.

But after hefty bribes, the guards allowed me to bring small gifts: a lump of soap, a thin blanket, a pot of salve for The Lady’s wind-whipped skin.

Even when we stood apart in a room, the warmth of his Ray glowed at the edges of my mind, relaying his emotions and fleeting desires.

Again, I convinced her to wait. The world is watching. Too many contingencies.

Amid a cacophony of murmurs, Keeya the merchant marched into the hall, brandishing her new son, barely three months old.

Sanjeet traced my brow, where my cloud of hair, unfettered by the ivory crown, now sprang around my face.

Everyone authorized to facilitate the execution is already upstairs.

The boy was a man now, enforcing law with the penitent severity of a former criminal.

He watched her grow in the Children’s Palace, smiling at her tenacity.

Drums echoed on sandstone, as cries rung from parapet to parapet...

At the mouth of the valley, chiseled into the rock face, stood massive twin statues of a Songland king, hand raised in foreboding.

The beast expelled an odorous huff similar to an exasperated sigh. Then it bent to its haunches.

She clutched a rag that reeked of astringent herbs, and shifted a bundle strapped to her back: a tuft-haired infant Redemptor, who babbled against her shoulder.

My breath floundered. It was like the air had disappeared, and I inhaled nothing now but pure blue energy, thrumming through my temples.

Enoba returned to the ehru, and asked his second boon: the power to rule an empire for eternity. For this gift, the ehru climbed to the heavens and stole two rays from the blazing sun.

Enoba feared a rebellion. Hoping to mollify his subjects, he returned to the ehru and demanded his last wish: a way to ensure that only children from Songland, and never children from Aritsar, would be selected as Redemptors.

The next morning I had packed a meager camp and ridden off with Hyung to Sagimsan.

“Not allowed by who? The bullies in Eunsan-do who called you names?” She let me ruminate on this before adding, “Besides, I can be family, dear. If you will have me.”

I did not stop to wonder why my cloak was warm as a brazier, instead of damp from dew.

I did not question why my limbs were lithe and swift, instead of rigid with the forest’s chill.

“Obabirin,” I yelled as Hyung careened toward the wall.

I flexed the fading fingers, willing them back into view as we flew across the foggy moors of Mewe, only to see my thumb disappear when we crossed a lodestone into Nontes.

I am not nameless; I will not fade into graceful oblivion like every other Kunleo girl, every other Empress Raybearer.

“Stop,” I said, sprinting to the front of the hall and evoking protests as I pushed through the kings and queens sharing the dais with Dayo.

“Again, you interfere with our covenant? Were the lives lost at Ebujo not enough? Still, you thirst for more?”

“What you are,” they purred, “is the bearer of a weak Ray. Until your blood runs with the power of all twelve Arit realms, you would be a paltry prize for the Underworld.”

I longed to soften the story, drape it in downy caveats and excuses.

“I will lean on you, Empress,” he said in a guttural voice, “if you promise you’ll come back.”

“Promise,” he said, “that you’ll fight to leave the Underworld. That this isn’t some stupid, idealistic suicide mission to pay penance for a crime you did not do.”